Someone Has To Wear The Black Scarf

Looks like I’ve found a new sweatshirt, which is exciting. I will not be trying out that facial hair, though.

It’s simple, but I am a huge fan of Punk liking wrestling again as his gimmick. It feels realistic, and builds on what happened at Payback. I didn’t totally love that match, but it definitely did what it was supposed to: make sure that regardless of how many (sigh) winged skull gun tattoos he has now, Cool Dad Chris Jericho will never be able to beat CM Punk.

Oh, come on. We’re not even going to get a real goodbye? I’ll miss the Walrus and the Carpenter.

***

AWESOME! I can’t wait to watch Christian do all the same spots in the general area of WAY BARRA. I sure hope he can us the Power of the Peeps/clapping to survive the WAY BARRA BARRAG.

Why not bring Christian back last night and have him work instead of the Miz, who no one wanted to see. I like how everyone thought CM Punk wasn’t going to show up, but no one thought “Hey, let’s replace the Miz with someone who doesn’t suck?”. Though to be fair, people may come for John Cena and CM Punk, but they stay for WAY BARRA and Joe Hennig. So, I guess I could see why no one was worried about the star power in the first match of the night.

Christian clearly said something to WAY BARRA before giving him the Unprettier, and I can only assume it was the last step in a family recipe for shepherd’s pie that he’d been calling out the entire match.

***

Sheamus is to 2-on-1 handicap matches against mid-carders what the Undertaker is to casket matches.

One of Damien Sandow’s finishers is now the school boy roll-up.

Do finishers work like FF7 Limit Breaks in the WWE? Can you just level up until you have all 3 or 4 to use on different opponents? Damien has the Hate Elbow, the Terminus neckbreak — which, is a fantastic name that, as Dr. Mrs. The Monarch would say “works on a lot of levels” — and the School Boy. Give him a useful submission finisher after a feud with Daniel Bryan and he’ll have a full kit.

I imagine Kane listening to that song on the bus ride in between towns after that breakup seg with him and DB. Mostly because I am not entirely sure what breakup song is hot on the streets this day. Is Adele even still alive? Also, how do you pronounce Adele? Is is like Adlai Stevenson?

***

I am sort of amazed, but unbelievably happy if the 2 out of 3 falls match did as well in the poll as they say it did. The best part of the Daniel Bryan experience is how many people have been made aware of how good the “indy” style of “lots of moves quickly that make sense as an independent story” can be when they focus more on the “independent story” part of that equation.

If they use Daniel Bryan to turn Randy Orton heel, I think that’ll say a lot about where the business is right now. And how crazy delicious over Daniel Bryan is as the reliably and consistently crazy wrestling underdog.

So, are we to assume that “taking advantage of a concussion” is a new instant heel thing along the lines of cheating on a face Diva or making sense during promos?

I guess not if you apologize for it.

***

This is a brilliant piece of work by AJ Lee. She’s been one of the five best characters on television for a long time, and it’s really nice to see the WWE treat a woman like a fully-fleshed out character. She’s delusional, but in a villainous type of way. The delusions of grandeur she has are things like “I’m the smartest and best person on earth”, which is what — and Punk mentioned this — everyone SHOULD think. It makes more sense that way. If you don’t think you’re the best or the smartest, it seems like it would be hard to be the best or the smartest.

Stephanie getting the “Executive VP, Creative” title for her lower-third feels like it’s letting a little too much light into the process. How do you explain to fans what “Creative” is without breaking kayfabe? Then I wonder if these are things I think about because I don’t understand how real people view wrestling.

Also, she’s a monster.

But, All Things Considered, I think that’s exactly what she should be doing. As much as we out here hate the McMahons, people at the shows do seem to love them. Sometimes you need to write for Bleacher Report enough times that Grantland decides to hire you. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t, but making Stephanie McMahon the evil queen of the Diva’s division seems like it gives AJ and everyone else something to play off of that casual fans — or at least the people at 90% of the Raws — seem to give a shit about. As long as they use it to make stars out of people like AJ and Kaitlyn, I don’t see an issue.

Are we supposed to assume that Stephanie is making it so they just can’t respond to what she says or that she doesn’t realize she isn’t pushing the mic far enough way for her to not be heard?

***

So, it was nerve damage and not a concussion? If this is kayfabe, it makes somehow even less sense.

Never go for a chokeslam when was fighting off the Shield. Don’t even lift your arms over your head. If I understand how wrestling physics work that protects you from the any and all injury you can possibly incur from taking a spear.

VINCE MCMAHON TURNED THE SHIELD INTO JOHN CENA WHEN HE SAID THE MAGIC WORDS “RUTHLESS AGGRESSION”!!!

***

This is TRULY THE GREATEST NIGHT IN THE HISTORY OF OUR SPORT. Antonio Cesaro with a quasi-mouthpiece is going to be a thing of beauty. I said it last week, but if this ends with a Swagger-Cesaro feud, I am going to get WE THE PEOPLE tattoo’d on my undercarriage.

Does this “more aggressive” Cesaro mean that he’ll be able to consistently beat Sami Zyan or is that still up in the air with the Executive VP of Creative?

They should be doing that with an American flag. Covering them with that flag is just disgraceful. To William Regal, I mean.

***

That was about the fourth consecutive solid to very good segment. The E is building a lot of momentum right now for a lot of things, and it remains to be seen how strong they are going into their most exciting PPV of the year, Money in the Bank.

I’ll tell you who should have seen this coming more than John Cena: the crowd. Everyone knows that Mark Henry is legit married to Mae Young. That’s why he went out of his way to hug her during her 9-millionth birthday celebration.

I’ll write more about Mark Henry another day, but he is the perfect example of how long it can take to get really good at what you do in this business. Some of it is luck, but the amount of things that Mark Henry is measurably better at now than he was 10-15 years ago is almost incomprehensible.

Hey, did you know that Chris Jericho does a Y2J impression to music? Yeah! It’s called Fozzy and they play some sort of slightly obscure subset of metal and Chris Jericho sometimes gets to go on the Eddie Trunk show.

If I were in 3MB, I’d get a bunch of really cool tattoos like Chris Jericho but, you know, less sad and regrettingly permanent.

One reason that Sin Cara never got over the way they thought he would: the fans can see him in the bullshit lighting. The Undertaker doesn’t get lighting like this, so why is Sin Cara getting gels put on?

***

Alberto Del Rio is the only guy who has Concussion Causer as his Special Skill in WWE2K14. It looked like Randy Orton had it too, but apparently he’s only able to make people unable to feel anything above from their neck up.

Speaking of the 2K series, does CM Punk have two separate “game” and “blacktop” sweatshirts like in MY Player mode?

Why would Del Rio keep going in a non-title match against the longest-reigning WWE champion of the last 25 years? I’d GTFO too.

Although he probably should have seen the Dolph thing coming. Like he’s going to follow doctor’s orders because he’s a face now. That’s what faces do! That’s how we know Triple H is one!

A final eternal question: why is a promo of thuds and noises with a live mic is poetic when Brock Lesnar does it, but so irritating when we have to listen to when it’s Randy Orton?